St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-04-17
were made at S:4S p. H., local time.
RAP | THEIR
Higher.
RURYING ALIVE.

DR.. TANNER, who acquired notoriety
several years ago by fasting for forty days
and nights, and who subsequently reiapSed
nto obSeuritg, has again come to the 'front.'
This time he'appears before the public as
the champion of suspended animation. Dr.
TANNER's provocation for reappearing be-
lore the public at this time was a recently
published article written by Dr.. WILLIAM
A. HAMMOND, the noted New York phys-
.ian. in which that gentleman de-
nounced as 'bosh" the assertion that
oerons buried alive became conscious
IN the grave. DIR. HAMMoND's theory
S that the condition of suspended
animation if there is any such condition,
and about which he is exceedingly skeptical,
must be one of Inconsistencies, and he
rdicules all the stories which have been
told of buried persons turning over in their
collins and tearing their hair out in their
desperate death struggles in the prison
house of the grave. DR.. TANNER takes
issue souareiy with DR.. HAMMOND on both
of these propositions. He maintains that
there is such a thing as suspended ANNA
ton, and that so far from it being one of
Inconsistencies, the minds action not only
remains perfect but is quickened and in
tensified hundred fold. In proof of his
assumptions, he cites the we'll authenticated
cases of the East India fakirs which were
referred to and fully discussed in the GLOBE
a year or more ago. In addition to that
DR.. TANNER adduceS testimony which he
has personally collected and which he
youches for He tells of man who had
awakened from trance at the moment of
sepulture, and when questioned by him as
to his feelings during the state of suspended
animation, the man said his experience was
similar to that one feels under the paralyz-
ing influence of terrible nightmare. He
knew that his friends supposed him to be
dead, and were making preparations for
his burial yet did not have the power to
break lnose from the yiSe-like grasp of this
horrible nightmare, which was worse than
a he'll of torment to him. He refers to an
other case, of young man who was sup
posed to have died from an attack of hay
fever. His father was fathless, and refused
to bury him. The attending physicians
brought other physicians to examine the
body, and after carefully applying the
usual tests. including oscillation, GAL
vanism and examinations by the ophthal-
moscope, they all unqualifedly stated that
the young man was dead. Still the father
remained faithless, and refused to prepare
his boys body for the grave. Then four
teen Chicago physicians went out to the
country home and examined the body
They united in an opinion that the young
man was dead as a herring. Two weeks
passed by. but the father would not yield to
the entreatieS of friends to have the BODY
committed to the grave. Finally the health
officers of the township took the matters in
hand, and issued peremptOry order that
the body be inferred without delay. Prepare
tons We're being made for the funeral,
when the emotions of the sill living sub
ject, who was all the time conscious of what
was passing around him, were so intense
as to be the means of his deliyerance.
He came out from his trance and,
DR.. TANNER says, is to-day living witness
to the fallacy of DR.. HAAIMoND's assump-
tionS. The MoLLIE FANCHER case and
the West Virginia girl who remained in a
trance for six months are referred to as adj
ditional evidence that death can be so per
fectly counterfeited as to defy all scientific
tests. DR.. TANNER asserts that there is no
reliable test to detect cases of suspended
animation which SO closely resemble the
post mortem state According to his theory
decomposition is the only infallible test of
death, and he thinks the medical profession
is grossly culpable for asserting otherwise.
The cessation of respiration, the arrest of
the hearts action, loss of animal heat rigor
mortis and all the signs of death which the
medical authorities lay down as infalIible,
have been demonstrated to be fallible, as
there are thousands of well-attested cases on
record that give fiat deuial to all such
eEements. Witnesses could come by the